The Frenchman had led the field, building on a 30-second first-stage advantage with the fastest time on stage four to establish a cushion of more than a minute.

But his mistake at the end of the first day of the new season leaves Kronos facing a race against time to repair the damage, while Loeb will have to make up nearly four minutes on new leader Marcus Gronholm.

The Finn, making his Ford debut, won stages two and six and leads Subaru’s Chris Atkinson by one minute 23.7seconds after six stages.

The Australian youngster faces a stern challenge to hold on to his surprise second spot, though, with Toni Gardemeister’s privateer Peugeot just 3.4secs behind.

Gilles Panizzi gave the new Red Bull Skoda team a stunning start to life by running in the podium positions early on – but the Frenchman dropped back this afternoon.

He lies fourth, just ahead of OMV Citroen driver Manfred Stohl. Former works Citroen driver Francois Duval, who won the last rally of 2005 in Australia, is sixth in his First Motorsport-run Skoda.

Subaru star Petter Solberg recovered from a disastrous first two stages when inappropriate tyres cost him three minutes, to move into seventh. Mikko Hirvonen is eighth for Ford.

A bumper crowd caused havoc this morning with excess traffic, which included a bus blocking the start of stage one, forcing the first two stages to be cancelled after only a handful of cars had competed.

Stage three was cancelled, leaving Englishman Matthew Wilson to wait anxiously for his Monte Carlo debut.

The 18-year-old, driving a Stobart Ford, eventually got his chance to take on the twisty Principality roads on stage four when he finished up a respectable 17th.

The Cumbrian followed that with 20th place on stage five and 17th on the final run of the day to put him 16th overall.

In the production class, Manxman David Higgins was well-placed after five stages. The Mitsubishi driver is second, 6.3secs behind Jasen Popov.